Participation trophies, no thanks.

tcmtech

Joined Nov 4, 2013
2,867
My wife and I go around about this all the time.

She feels that any effort even that just used to show up late for something, is praise worthy and gets all over my butt when ever I don't give our daughter praise for doing basically nothing or having done something wrong or out rightly failing at it multiple times over.

Our daughter will tell me to watch her bounce a ball with one and and catch it with the other and say she will do it 10 times without missing. If she only does it once or twice then I give her a good friendly comment like, " Boo! That was terrible! You stink so go an practice more sweetie." with a big teasing grin and then point out she missed her mark by 8 times to which my wife will go ape over that and say that what I am doing is bad for her confidence or worse.

To me what's bad for her confidence is giving her a false feeling of accomplishment for having failed miserably at the goal you set for yourself and thinking that if you almost did anything you deserve praise for it even if it was ultimately a useless, pointless or all out failure at whatever it should have been.
 

#12

Joined Nov 30, 2010
18,224
I have met a few of these nurturing, Earth Mother types and had the sense to run!
Quotation from me: "You're a left handed cat lover that thinks you're an artist? We would never get along."
The way you talk, @tcmtech makes me wonder if you have a mail order bride whom you never met before the wedding.
 

tcmtech

Joined Nov 4, 2013
2,867
Unfortunately I knew her for two years before meeting in person and she lived with me for over year before we got married and was the same person for at least a year and half before she got switched out for a lookalike with a 180 personally of the original. :(

I sort of wish it was a mail order bride situation being many of them now come with a warranty! If they run away or kill themselves or have a drastic change in personality you can get a refund or a new one sent to you. :D

Partially it is bit my fault though. The mail order brides with a warranty start at around $5000 each. I got mine on eBay on a 'as is where is' sale for $29.95. The resume and pictures looked good but I think I got scammed and the sent me a cheap knock off instead. :p
 

GopherT

Joined Nov 23, 2012
8,009
Unfortunately I knew her for two years before meeting in person and she lived with me for over year before we got married and was the same person for at least a year and half before she got switched out for a lookalike with a 180 personally of the original. :(

I sort of wish it was a mail order bride situation being many of them now come with a warranty! If they run away or kill themselves or have a drastic change in personality you can get a refund or a new one sent to you. :D

Partially it is bit my fault though. The mail order brides with a warranty start at around $5000 each. I got mine on eBay on a 'as is where is' sale for $29.95. The resume and pictures looked good but I think I got scammed and the sent me a cheap knock off instead. :p
It was your fault for not checking the expiration date. Next time, grab one from the back of the shelf. They usually load the newest inventory there.
 

#12

Joined Nov 30, 2010
18,224
we got married and was the same person for at least a year and half before she got switched out for a lookalike with a 180 personally of the original.
And that is why I kicked the last one out 21 years ago.

Translation: I understand.
 

tcmtech

Joined Nov 4, 2013
2,867
So tempting but I see it as my better investment in life to do my best to make sure her daughter doesn't grow up to be another newer version of her mom.

She's almost 7 now and it's becoming clear she too doesn't really care for dear old moms often times irrationally over protective and over controlling ways either. :cool:
 

Thread Starter

nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
13,086
I learned a valuable lesson early about be a loser. Losing is relative to the competition and it makes you try harder if the competition is better. I ran track in HS at a little country school with mainly little country schools as competition. The best I could get was a third place there. Moved to Dallas TX for my last few years and could have easily made the team running with the city boys. That third place finish meant more to me than winning later.
 
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